


Counting

by shinychimera



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-02
Updated: 2009-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who can you count on when your world turns upside down?  McCoy and Kirk finally talk after the <i>Narada</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting

**Author's Note:**

> **Authors:** [](http://sistercoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**sistercoyote**](http://sistercoyote.livejournal.com/) and [](http://shinychimera.livejournal.com/profile)[**shinychimera**](http://shinychimera.livejournal.com/)   
> **Warnings:** Sad.  
> **Disclaimer:** We do not own any of these characters.
> 
> Originally [posted](http://community.livejournal.com/st_reboot/178866.html) to [](http://community.livejournal.com/st_reboot/profile)[**st_reboot**](http://community.livejournal.com/st_reboot/)

Darkness and silence fill the room.

It's been a month since their triumphant and tragic return to Earth. Jim was absolved of cheating in the _Kobayashi Maru_, inasmuch as Spock rescinded the charges due to a "...misunderstanding of the cadet's unusual methodology." This is good, because Starfleet needs him. Of course, McCoy thinks, settling into bed, Starfleet needs every one of the surviving cadets from their class, and the classes after them, because there are so few left. A little more than one ship's worth. At this point, seminars and examinations are more a matter of formality than they are evaluation for the crew of the _Enterprise_. The crew stands apart in ways they never could have expected.

The senior dorm around him, which should have been bustling with life and late-night arguments in the halls, is quiet. When they got back, all the _Enterprise_ cadets were shuffled around; he and Jim were moved to a room with a beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay. Of the Golden Gate Bridge, still standing like so much else because of the _Enterprise_ and her crew, because of Jim and Spock, specifically. McCoy supposes Spock got better quarters, as well. Jim would know, but McCoy and Jim haven't been talking much. To each other, or, in McCoy's case at least, to much of anyone.

Jim opens the blinds only at night, to stare up at the stars. McCoy never opens them at all.

McCoy stretches his arm across his eyes and tries to relax, tries to imitate Jim's slow, even breathing in the bed next to his. He hasn't slept well since they got back, because he can't stop running his tallies. Not the good things, not the things he'd like to keep track of. Not even the neutral things he needs to be able to keep in order in his mind to serve as Chief Medical Officer.

No, he tallies up his dead. The ones he couldn't save. The ones he never saw. The ones he couldn't get to in time, whose screams still ring in his ears. The ones whose deaths he had to ease. His heart clenches at the last category, the one that includes his father.

He hasn't touched non-topical alcohol in a month, because he's terrified he'd crawl into the bottle and never come out again.

_Stop that_, he scolds himself, trying to keep still. _That way lies madness_. The cadets who had the room before them had pushed the beds together, and neither he nor Jim has had the energy to pull them apart again, despite the fact that they're both restless, easily woken.

"Bones?" Jim murmurs.

"What?"

"You're awake."

"Yes, I'm awake. Why are you whispering? What is this, we're twelve and at summer camp?"

He hears Jim roll over; his voice is clearer when he says, "I got sent home from summer camp. For fighting."

McCoy's throat tightens; he doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry. "You're telling me the only thing you _haven't_ been thrown out of is Starfleet?"

He can't see Jim, but he can picture the expression on his face clearly: ironic smile, eyes half-closed, eyebrows raised. "Yeah, I guess so. Barely."

"What is it, Jim?"

"What do you think about while you're not sleeping?"

McCoy sighs. "I count."

"Sheep?"

"No."

"Yeah. Me neither."

McCoy can't imagine what to say to that, suddenly sure to his bones that Jim counts the same things he does.

_If we stay, if we go back up there, it's only going to get worse. But, when asked, we'll both be on that ship in a heartbeat._

The silence stretches, grows, spreads through the black room more densely than the fog coming in over the Bay. McCoy rolls onto his side, facing Jim's bed, and finally finds something to say.

"Dammit, Jim," he says, low and soft and lacking the vehemence he usually puts into the phrase. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Jim half-laughs. "For what?"

"I don't know." But he does. "For getting you on the ship. For doubting you. For not standing with you against Spock. For Nero, for your dad, for the whole damn mess. Pick one."

"Well, don't take credit for the _whole_ mess," Jim says, slowly. "I helped. And I wanted to be on her worse than you wanted to bring me there, so I won't accept an apology for that, either."

"Jim..."

"You were right about Spock." McCoy isn't sure if the sound Jim makes is another laugh or a sob, and he shifts a little closer. "You were _right_, Bones, he _was_ the captain and I _was_ insubordinate to argue with him in the middle of a crisis and if it had been me in that chair, hell," McCoy's close enough now to feel him shake his head. "If it had been me in that chair I probably would have done the same damn thing he did."

McCoy wants to point out all the ways that statement is wrong. Instead, he reaches out and lightly grips Jim's shoulder.

"Maybe so," he says, before the silence can crush them again, "but when he stepped down and you needed everyone on that bridge to be confident in you, I should have minded my tongue, Jim. I should have kept my doubts to myself. I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"You said what everyone was thinking."

"That doesn't make it okay."

Jim draws nearer, pressing his forehead against McCoy's shoulder. "Anyway, Bones, I have to have _someone_ who'll call me on my shit."

McCoy folds his arms around him, and rubs his cheek against the top of Jim's head.

"Promise me....promise me you'll always be there to call me on my shit." Jim snakes one arm under his waist, and wraps the other over his ribs with an iron-hard grip, pressing his clenched fist between McCoy's shoulder blades. "Please."

It's not a word he hears often, and the ache powering it cracks something McCoy's been holding back in himself. His hand comes up to tangle in Jim's hair.

"You can count on me, Jim. I'll be there."

Jim's arms tighten around him with all the power of the things he can't say. McCoy brings his hand forward so he's cradling Jim's face, and then kisses him. There will never, ever be anything platonic about a kiss between the two of them, but this one's as tender and reassuring as he can make it. He strokes his thumb along Jim's damp cheekbone.

The dark room falls silent again. This time, it's all right.


End file.
